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Out now - Latin America's Radical Left Challenges and Complexities of Political Power in the Twenty-first Century

Edited by Steve Ellner

Foreword by William I. Robinson

Includes a chapter by Bolivia Rising editor Federico Fuentes
“Bad Left Government” versus “Good Left Social Movements”? Creative Tensions
within Bolivia’s Process of Change

This timely book
explores the unique challenges facing the left in Latin America today. The
contributors offer clear and comprehensive assessments of the difficult
conditions and conflicting forces that have brought to power the current
leftist regimes in Latin American and the Caribbean and are shaping their
development. Avoiding the widely accepted but simplistic dichotomy of “good”
and “bad” left or democratic and antidemocratic left, the book first sets the
theoretical and historical context for understanding the rise of the left in
the region. It then provides case studies of the radical left in power in
Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador and its influence in Nicaragua, El Salvador,
and Cuba. Thematic chapters consider social and labor movements and debates
over problems arising from the democratic transition to socialism. The book
points to concrete circumstances in which theoretical issues related to reform
and change have played out in nations where the left is in power. These include
prioritization of social over economic objectives, the role of the state in the
democratic road to socialism, and ecological as opposed to developmentalist
strategies. Finally, the book examines the opposition to radical governments in
power coming not only from the right but also from movements to their left.
With its balanced and thorough assessment, this study will provide readers with
a deep and nuanced understanding of the complexity of the political, economic,
and sociocultural reality of contemporary Latin America and the Caribbean.